TOOTSIE - HOFFMAN HURT BY TOOTSIE REJECTION

HOFFMAN HURT BY TOOTSIE REJECTION

Playing a cross-dresser in TOOTSIE gave DUSTIN HOFFMAN great insight into the "vulgar" and "crude" way women are treated by men.
The movie star insists portraying Dorothy Michaels in the 1982 movie not only won him a clutch of awards, but made him a better man - and a better husband.
He tells WENN, "When I made Tootsie I would be on the set and it became a thing where the crew could bring a friend to work with them, introduce the friend to me and the friend would think that I was really this woman, Dorothy Michaels.
"The friends didn't know what the movie was about, so it became an every day thing, where these guys would be introduced to me - as Dorothy - look me up and down with their eyes like Venetian blinds closing because they thought they were meeting (co-star) Jessica Lange or something.
"I went home and told my wife, 'It's so shocking to me how vulgar and crude and insensitive men are with women.' They look you up and down and you are gone.'"
And the rejection he felt as a desperate young man is nothing compared to that he felt as Dorothy: "I've been rejected by many women growing up, because I was not very attractive and I was short - but not quite that brutally.
"I suddenly realised that I grew up under the same brainwashed conditions. I thought I was an interesting woman as Dorothy and yet, if I would've met myself at a party, I wouldn't have tried to pick myself up! At that point I realised I had missed out on a lot of interesting women."